OWN CORRESPONDENT, Canberra | Monday 2.00pm.
NEW Zealand rugby officials may consider using minders to keep leading players out of trouble following a weekend nightclub incident in the Australian capital Canberra.
New Zealand A team management on Monday confirmed three players — All Blacks Craig Innes, Carlos Spencer and Walter Little — were held briefly by police after a dispute in a club in Canberra in the early hours of Sunday.
No charges were laid and bar manager Alex Naoumidis refuted suggestions of a brawl, saying only one punch was thrown, and that was by another drinker, at Innes. “There was a scuffle, it was no big deal,” Naoumidis said.
The players were celebrating their team’s victory over the ACT Brumbies in Canberra and the three players were released in time to join team-mates on a flight to Melbourne where they play the Australian Barbarians on Saturday.
Team manager Tony Bedford said Monday: “We’ve spoken to them individually and as a group. They’re claiming that there was no major altercation. One player had been punched and that was the end of the story.”
Spencer said celebrity status was becoming a problem for rugby players. “The boys can’t go out and enjoy themselves anymore,” he said. “There’s always someone who wants to prove he’s bigger than you.”
In Wellington, acting New Zealand Rugby Football Union chief executive Bill Wallace said it may eventually become necessary to have minders to safeguard players when they socialise. “We’ll have to consider these sorts of things if these incidents occur in the future,” Wallace said.
However, Phil Kingsley-Jones, manager of All Blacks superstar Jonah Lomu, warned minders would be counter-productive. “A couple of years ago Jonah went to Eden Park when he was injured and he had two people watching him. It was Jonah-mania at that time and we got adverse publicity with ‘Jonah and his minders’, ‘Jonah and his gorillas’…,” Kingsley-Jones said.
The Canberra incident is the latest in a series involving leading New Zealand players. Oago Highlander Romi Ropati was convicted last month on a charge of assaulting a man and Super 12 players Norm Hewitt and Mike Edwards (Hurricanes), Xavier Rush and Tony Coughlan (Auckland Blues), Bruce Reihana (Chiefs) and Kees Meeuws (Otago) have all been involved in off-field incidents.–AFP